Periodontist Salary

Two federal facts shape everything else on this page.

Dentistry has 12 recognized specialties — recognized by the National Commission on Recognition of Dental Specialties and Certifying Boards — but the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes a separate wage series for only four dentist groups: general dentists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, orthodontists and prosthodontists.

Everyone else, periodontists included, is folded into one catch-all category: "Dentists, all other specialists" (SOC 29-1029).

The latest BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) estimates are for May 2025, released May 15, 2026.

In the grouped category, the median wage was $224,990 a year ($108.17 an hour), the mean was $247,930, and the category covered 5,230 jobs.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025 national estimates, "Dentists, all other specialists" (29-1029).

Treat that median as a benchmark for the group, not a periodontist salary.

BLS does not list which specialties sit in 29-1029, and its composition leans heavily federal: 2,220 of the 5,230 jobs — more than 40% — sit in the federal executive branch, where the median was $232,980, versus 2,570 jobs in offices of dentists at $224,990.

Two measurement notes matter.

OEWS wage figures are straight-time gross pay: they include production bonuses, commissions and incentive pay, but exclude overtime, non-production bonuses, profit-sharing and employer benefit costs.

And OEWS employment counts exclude the self-employed and owners in unincorporated firms — a periodontist-owner's practice profit is not in these figures.

The American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute (HPI) measures something different: net income, a dentist's personal income after practice expenses and before personal income taxes.

For 2025 data, median net income for all specialists in private practice was $258,880 (owner specialists $259,550); HPI reported too few responses to publish an employed-specialist figure.

The last periodontist-specific number — $295,780 for 2024, private practice — is covered below.

For the training path behind the title, see the periodontist career guide; for how the dentist pay codes BLS publishes compare, see the specialty pay ranking.

BLS publishes its own hourly figure for the grouped category: a median of $108.17 an hour, with the 10th percentile at $50.06 and the 90th at $193.61.

The annual numbers assume a full-time, year-round schedule of 2,080 hours — annual = hourly × 2,080.

Dividing the annual median for reference gives about $18,749 a month (÷12) or about $4,327 a week (÷52).

These are arithmetic conversions of the $224,990 median, not separate measurements.

The scheduling assumption matters.

BLS notes that many dentists work less than 40 hours a week, although some work considerably more — so the annual figure is a scheduling assumption as much as a wage, and the monthly and weekly equivalents inherit it.

Inside offices of dentists — the setting where most of the category's private jobs sit — the grouped median was $224,990 across 2,570 jobs.

Federal executive branch positions paid a median of $232,980 across 2,220 jobs, a large share of the category.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025 industry and ownership estimates for "Dentists, all other specialists."

The last row is BLS's ownership split rather than an industry: across all industries, private-sector jobs in this category paid a median of $219,780 (2,810 jobs).

Of the settings shown, colleges and universities have the lowest median at $132,680 and outpatient care centers the highest at $305,240.

One federal employer publishes its dentist pay scale: VA's Title 38 physician and dentist pay tables, effective January 11, 2026, place Periodontics in Pay Table 1, where Tier 1 (staff dentist) ranges from $124,308 to $315,000, Tier 2 (supervisor or section chief) from $145,000 to $335,000, and Tier 3 (service chief) from $165,000 to $350,000.

Oral surgery sits in Pay Table 2, with a Tier 1 range of $124,308 to $400,000.

The ADA's published split is ownership, not corporate form: owner specialists reported median net income of $259,550, and HPI published no employed-specialist figure for 2025 because too few responses came in.

How a corporate-group (DSO) position pays against an independent practice is not a split these published sources draw; as context, 16% of U.S. dentists were affiliated with a DSO as of 2024.

Neither series on this page breaks periodontist pay out by years of experience.

The ADA's periodontist figure is a single median per survey year: $295,780 for 2024, the latest year published.

The 2025 figure was suppressed for too few responses — 27 periodontist responses came in that year.

Suppression is normal in this survey, not a periodontist quirk.

Pediatric dentistry was the only named specialty published alongside the all-specialists figure for 2025, at a $245,300 median from 70 responses.

Overall, HPI's 2025 survey drew 1,113 responses from a sample of 59,951 private-practice dentists — a 1.9% response rate — and its figures are not inflation-adjusted.

The closest experience signal in the federal data is the percentile spread: the 10th-to-90th range of $104,120 to $402,700 describes the whole distribution of the grouped category, not a pay ladder an individual climbs.

Credentials are a separate question from pay.

Board certification through the American Board of Periodontology is a voluntary credential, and neither source used here publishes a pay split by certification status — see board certification in periodontology for what the credential involves.

BLS published a state median for the grouped category in only 19 states in the May 2025 release.

The highest: Texas at $286,510, Oregon at $256,510, Illinois at $250,880, South Carolina at $246,770 and Arizona at $244,170.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025 state estimates for "Dentists, all other specialists."

Read these as grouped-category figures, not periodontist salaries.

There is no periodontist-specific state figure in this data — the 19 published state medians are all for the grouped category — and Oregon's employment figure is suppressed in the release.

DentistryHires lists periodontist jobs posted by employers, with the pay each employer chooses to publish.

Posted figures exclude bonuses and production pay unless an employer folds them into the posted range, so read a listing's range as base pay.

Use the grouped federal medians and the ADA net income figures above as benchmarks when you compare postings — not as promises about what any single listing pays.

Where a posting names its setting (private practice, group, academic, public health), the setting medians above give a rough frame for what that employer is working from.

Three rules keep these numbers honest.

First, don't mix measures: BLS figures are straight-time wages for employees, while ADA net income is personal income after practice expenses and before personal income taxes for dentists in private practice — a different measure, on a different population, and never the same kind of figure as a wage.

Second, benchmark within the right group.

Inside offices of dentists in May 2025, the grouped specialists' $224,990 median sat below oral and maxillofacial surgeons ($360,820), prosthodontists ($311,220) and orthodontists ($287,960).

Nationally, general dentists — with their own series — had a median of $170,950.

Endodontics is grouped like periodontics, and its 2025 ADA figure was suppressed too; the endodontist salary guide covers how that page sources its numbers.

Third, match the number to the decision.

Negotiating an employed position?

The grouped wage percentiles and the setting medians are the closest published frame.

Comparing ownership paths?

The ADA's owner-specialist median is the relevant one.

This page is career and compensation information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Wage and survey figures change with each release — confirm current numbers with BLS's OEWS tables and the ADA's Health Policy Institute before relying on them.